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For Its Second Act, Tribeca Goes Global

By

Steve Dollar

Updated April 24, 2012 11:31 p.m. ET

The 11th annual Tribeca Film Festival, which continues through Sunday, has a reputation for its strong foreign-language selections. Here are a few recommended titles from Indonesia, Sweden, Norway, France and the Philippines.

'Graceland'

Not every vulnerable kidnapping victim in every big-screen thriller can count on Liam Neeson as a butt-kicking juggernaut of a dad. If two Tribeca Film Festival selections, from France and the Philippines, are any indication, there's a new kind of action hero in town. And he's going to get stomped.

In Frederic Jardin's adrenaline-jacked "Sleepless Night," a rogue cop (European action stud Tomer Sisley) has to rescue the son he's neglected from a crew of mobsters whose drug shipment he's ripped off—all while slowly bleeding out from a wound suffered in the botched heist. Most of the chase scenes traverse a crowded disco floor at the suburban nightclub where the bad guys are headquartered. It's like Paul Greengrass ("The Bourne Ultimatum") gone Eurotrash, with one jaw-dropping sequence staged amid a line dance to "Another One Bites the Dust."

Supporting Characters

Mr. Sisley, who does all his own stunts and choreographed a grueling fight scene, wanted to make sure the audience feels his pain. "This guy, if he runs down the stairs a little too fast, he stumbles and falls," he said, chatting a few hours before the film's festival premiere on Sunday. "He makes mistakes and he pays for them. Even the fight in the kitchen, the idea was to have something wild, but not technical. He's not someone who knows how to fight really well. The scene is like two dogs that fight and never give up. That's what I liked about the character. He cannot give up, but he's not better than the other guy."

Marlon Villar (Arnold Reyes), the fallible father in Ron Morales's "Graceland," has it even worse. He's impossibly tangled in a network of corruption that stretches from Manila's grimy sex-traffic underground to the elite class of power-brokers whom he serves as a chauffeur with a desperate need for a large amount of cash. When a kidnap plot goes horribly wrong, Marlon has to outthink everyone, from the political terrorist who has his daughter to his criminal former boss, while keeping the lid on his own dark secrets.

Mr. Morales, a Manhattan resident who graduated from New York University's film school, described the film as a kind of cross between the ballistic "Man on Fire" and the downbeat Swedish film "Lilja 4-ever" (about an underaged Russian girl's involuntary descent into the sex trade).

"Most of the sex workers were pretty apprehensive to talk to me," said Mr. Morales, who gained access to a real brothel before filming a climactic scene, shooting during its off-hours. "They don't know who I am. I'm not going to sleep with them, and then I start asking them questions."

The film's realism was partly inspired by the Romanian "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," with extensive run-and-gun location shoots. The documentary feel contributes to an added level of social commentary.

"It's the dark side," Mr. Morales said, "where I really like to go."

'Postcards From the Zoo'

Ladya Cheryl in 'Postcards From the Zoo,' about a homeless community living in a zoo.
Sony Seniawan

One of the more distinctive and visionary films playing the festival, this curious consideration of Jakarta's nearly 150-year-old Ragunan Zoo stars only a few of the facility's 270 species (many endangered). But it turns out many of them are human: In this fictional scenario, the zoo also hosts a colorful community of the homeless, who have turned the property into their own imaginary theme park. The director, who goes only by the name Edwin, proposes what happens when Lana (Ladya Cheryl), a child of the zoo, becomes an adult and has to leave Eden for the urban jungle—assisted by a cowboy-magician whose purpose remains vague. Blatant statements about natural beauty and the loss of innocence soon replace the charming giraffes and tigers, although the film's spare, almost wordless construction, and Lana's beatific aura, suggest maybe that's not the intent at all. It's ambiguous and hypnotic throughout.

'Certain People'

Shimmering sunlight gives this Swedish ensemble piece a deceptive warmth. It's set amid the elysian splendor of a country estate whose owner, the serene, lissome Katinka (Mia Mountain), is celebrating her birthday with a group of artsy, intellectual friends and her accommodating mate, Greger (
Ludde Hagberg
). Tensions rise when Katinka's brother shows up with a provocative new acquaintance, Linda (
Yohanna Idha
). The mysterious game-show hostess, whose sexual charisma is equal to her lack of sophistication, becomes a catalyst for exposing everyone's pretensions, lies and desires as the drinks flow and the party whirls through the night. The screenplay's double-edged wit, adroit cast and Mr. Akin's perfectly measured pacing balances the film on a high wire, teetering between comedy and tragedy.

Forget Stieg Larsson and his "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." The next hot literary-to-screen phenomenon ready to break out of Scandinavia is crime novelist Jo Nesbø. The Oslo writer, still very much alive, is the source of this raucous (and absurdly violent) caper comedy about four losers—workers at an artificial Christmas-tree factory—who miraculously win a bundle of cash betting in a soccer pool. That's bad luck for
Oscar Svendson
(Kyrre Hellum), who has to explain to the cops why he's the quartet's only survivor after he crawls away from a strip-club massacre. The flashback-driven plot is frantic and ridiculous, packed with low humor and splattered brains, as director Magnus Martens offers a Norwegian answer to the daft mayhem of
Quentin Tarantino
and the Coen brothers in "Fargo" mode.

'The Virgin, the Copts and Me'

With his self-deprecating regard and keen desire to engage with his family's history, French-Egyptian documentarian Namir Abdel Messeeh calls to mind the diaristic journeys of
Ross McElwee
("Sherman's March") in this unusual and richly personal film. Forced to detour from plans to make a movie about the Copts —the largest segment of Egypt's Christian faithful—and a 1968 mass-sighting of the Virgin Mary, he instead reconnects with a community of relatives in his family's native rural village. Surprising revelations ensue, as the filmmaker discovers there's more than one way to chase an apparition.